Illuminating the Consumer Journey: Real MTA Using Neuro

As I pointed out in last week’s article, the promise of MTA (MultiTouch Attribution) was stifled by not having continuous interim measures of incremental branding effect. This led to Bayesian (to lipstick it a bit) guesswork about the power of the last touch, the first touch, and the touches in between. There were no data by which to judge whether the TV impression that came third in the journey was what closed the deal. Or was it the YouTube impression on CTV that was eight days before the purchase event—all this for a brand that customer had not bought before, looking back three years. More likely it was a synergy effect with certain of the impressions having moved memory and later ones improving consideration—and still later ones improving purchase imaginings. My work with Jerry Zaltman, Chuck Young, and Jerry Nevins has led me to suggest this as a new branding metric worth using.